It's the look in her eyes that is most revealing: the emptiness contained there reads like the pages of a tragic memoir. And the pursed lips, clamped shut in a gesture that belies the stories she wants to tell, the words that have risen in her throat, forced back by fear, or a sense of duty, or both.
There is also a lingering beauty in the features of her face. It's obvious that Shazia Chahchar was a beautiful woman once, but that elegance has faded, become worn out and tired. The youthful allure that is the trademark of young dreamers has crumbled under the weight of the harsh realities of life.
"I used to have dreams," she says, cradling her two-month-old son, her third child in five years. "But I've forgotten them all now."
Five years ago, Shazia told me about those dreams. She wanted to be a doctor, she said, a reasonable ambition for any 16-year-old, under normal circumstances. She wanted to do something to help the young women in Sindh's rural hinterlands - an altruistic motivation that filled my mind with respect for this slight, soft-spoken young woman.
Shazia, you see, didn't live under normal circumstances. Her world - the poor villages of Shikarpur district in Pakistan's rough-and-tumble centre - is a place where young girls are treated like property, bought and sold and traded by their male overlords, paid as compensation for land disputes, killed and raped for the slightest perceived transgressions. It's a place where girls are not supposed to dream.
But Shazia was unlike most of the girls and women I'd met during my two weeks researching the honour crimes phenomenon in Sindh. She had plans; she saw a future outside of the usual one reserved for poor villagers. And she was working hard for that future.
But then she made a fatal mistake: she fell in love.
In some ways, Shazia's story is a typical tale of tragic love, a South Asian Romeo and Juliet tragedy pitting one family against another in a world where passion and desire are emotions reserved for men.
It begins at midnight in 2004, in the wheat fields of Rethi village, a dangerous place even if you're not on the run - lawless and riddled with tribal wars. Shazia's ordeal unfolds with a meeting with her sweetheart, Ehsan, another secret encounter in an eight-month-long clandestine relationship, as innocent as it is perilous. Shazia is desperate. She has run out of her family's home after her father announced she was to be sold to a man 10 years her elder and a known criminal.
"He was a savage," says Shazia, who was 14 at the time. "I knew I could never marry him. I'd rather kill myself."
When she reaches Ehsan, she gives him an ultimatum: marry her or she would jump in the Indus River.
The next day, they were husband and wife, and running for their lives from Shazia's family. In the code of "honour" in this part of Pakistan, considered the honour crime capital of the world, Shazia was a black stain on the family. She was kari - a black woman - and the only way to cleanse the family name was her death.
Seven years have passed since that fateful night but Shazia's ordeal still hasn't ended. Abandoned by Pakistan's legal system, she lives life in a constant state of pause, a prisoner in the home of her in-laws, unable to leave the walled compound for fear that her family will take the opportunity to kill her. Her grandfather has died, her sister also, but she was unable to attend their funerals.
The desperation I heard in her voice when we first met five years ago has dissolved into a kind of stoic resolve.
"People tell me I married for love," she says, "that I should be strong. But how can I be strong when I have to live like this?"
Certainly, the ravages of captivity have taken their toll. Shazia is now 21 but her features exhibit all the pallor of a woman entering middle age. Flickers of vitality emerge only when she talks about her three children. They are her lifeline in a world that has lost all other meaning.
"God has blessed me," she says, beaming all her love into the face of her youngest child. "He has given me three boys. At least I don't have to watch a daughter suffer the way I have."
NO OTHER LAND
Director: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor, Hamdan Ballal
Stars: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham
Rating: 3.5/5
The finalists
Player of the Century, 2001-2020: Cristiano Ronaldo (Juventus), Lionel Messi (Barcelona), Mohamed Salah (Liverpool), Ronaldinho
Coach of the Century, 2001-2020: Pep Guardiola (Manchester City), Jose Mourinho (Tottenham Hotspur), Zinedine Zidane (Real Madrid), Sir Alex Ferguson
Club of the Century, 2001-2020: Al Ahly (Egypt), Bayern Munich (Germany), Barcelona (Spain), Real Madrid (Spain)
Player of the Year: Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi, Robert Lewandowski (Bayern Munich)
Club of the Year: Bayern Munich, Liverpool, Real Madrid
Coach of the Year: Gian Piero Gasperini (Atalanta), Hans-Dieter Flick (Bayern Munich), Jurgen Klopp (Liverpool)
Agent of the Century, 2001-2020: Giovanni Branchini, Jorge Mendes, Mino Raiola
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Kumulus Water
Started: 2021
Founders: Iheb Triki and Mohamed Ali Abid
Based: Tunisia
Sector: Water technology
Number of staff: 22
Investment raised: $4 million
Real estate tokenisation project
Dubai launched the pilot phase of its real estate tokenisation project last month.
The initiative focuses on converting real estate assets into digital tokens recorded on blockchain technology and helps in streamlining the process of buying, selling and investing, the Dubai Land Department said.
Dubai’s real estate tokenisation market is projected to reach Dh60 billion ($16.33 billion) by 2033, representing 7 per cent of the emirate’s total property transactions, according to the DLD.
Crazy Rich Asians
Director: Jon M Chu
Starring: Constance Wu, Henry Golding, Michelle Yeon, Gemma Chan
Four stars
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Ms Yang's top tips for parents new to the UAE
- Join parent networks
- Look beyond school fees
- Keep an open mind
Honeymoonish
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In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe
Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010
Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille
Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm
Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year
Denmark: PKK one of two terrorist groups along with Iranian separatists ASMLA to raise “two-digit million amounts”
Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners
TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013
THE SIXTH SENSE
Starring: Bruce Willis, Toni Collette, Hayley Joel Osment
Director: M. Night Shyamalan
Rating: 5/5
Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
World Cup warm-up fixtures
Friday, May 24:
- Pakistan v Afghanistan (Bristol)
- Sri Lanka v South Africa (Cardiff)
Saturday, May 25
- England v Australia (Southampton)
- India v New Zealand (The Oval, London)
Sunday, May 26
- South Africa v West Indies (Bristol)
- Pakistan v Bangladesh (Cardiff)
Monday, May 27
- Australia v Sri Lanka (Southampton)
- England v Afghanistan (The Oval, London)
Tuesday, May 28
- West Indies v New Zealand (Bristol)
- Bangladesh v India (Cardiff)
The biog
DOB: March 13, 1987
Place of birth: Jeddah, Saudi Arabia but lived in Virginia in the US and raised in Lebanon
School: ACS in Lebanon
University: BSA in Graphic Design at the American University of Beirut
MSA in Design Entrepreneurship at the School of Visual Arts in New York City
Nationality: Lebanese
Status: Single
Favourite thing to do: I really enjoy cycling, I was a participant in Cycling for Gaza for the second time this year
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Libya's Gold
UN Panel of Experts found regime secretly sold a fifth of the country's gold reserves.
The panel’s 2017 report followed a trail to West Africa where large sums of cash and gold were hidden by Abdullah Al Senussi, Qaddafi’s former intelligence chief, in 2011.
Cases filled with cash that was said to amount to $560m in 100 dollar notes, that was kept by a group of Libyans in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.
A second stash was said to have been held in Accra, Ghana, inside boxes at the local offices of an international human rights organisation based in France.
